The Lights Are On But Nobody's Home
by UndressTheseBeautifulLies
Summary: Caterina Valentine is not who you think she is. Caterina Valentine couldn't tell you who she is. But this, this is her story. So sit back and listen to what she's saying.


**A/N: So I don't really know what this is, but here it is.**

She _smiles, _but she isn't _happy._

She _giggles, _but that joke isn't so_ funny_ now.

She _asks_ but she doesn't _care._

She _says hello _but new faces are just so _uninteresting. _

_So who is she? _

_Is she Cat? Or Caterina? Or maybe, she's just the shadow of a girl she was._

_Maybe, the lights are on, but nobody's home. _

_Knock knock...?_

From the moment she was born, Caterina Valentine was trouble. Or, at least, that's what her Dad said. A month and a half early and with heart problems, Caterina was in the hospital for eight weeks, breathing steadily thanks to her tubes, and her mother sat at her bedside (or incubatorside) and cried every single day, with a toddler Jason on her lap, one finger hooked onto Caterina's gripping hand.

By the time her parents knew it, she was three years old. She knew, even then, that she was a mommy's girl. Her daddy didn't like her very much. He'd pretend when her mother was there, joking and laughing, and pulling at Caterina's little pigtails a little too hard. But when they were alone he'd pick at her, like an eagle would with a sparrow. He'd tell her that she wasn't pretty, that she was worthless, meaningless to him and her mother.

Caterina didn't know any better. She hung off of his every word, eyebrows knitted together, mouth slightly ajar.

* * *

When she was fourteen, she became withdrawn and quiet. Her brother asked her what was wrong, as did her mother. "Come on, baby. You weren't born a month early, too sick to even breathe on your own, to survive and be like this. What's wrong, my little kitten?" Her Mom asked, tickling Caterina under her chin. Caterina just shrugged her off, shrinking from her touch. It broke her mother's heart.

She stayed like this for a year.

And then she dyed her hair.

* * *

"Mama, look at my hair!" Caterina cried, happily spinning round and round the living room. Her mother wasn't thrilled, and inwardly cringed. Where had her little girl gone? Her sparkly little girl with pigtails? She was happier, at least, so her mother cried out delightedly.

"Oh, darling, you look wonderful!" She smiles. "Doesn't she, Harry? Jason?" Harry, Caterina's father, shrugged and continued combing through the sports section, but Jason grinned.

"You look like cotton candy. Really dark cotton candy!" He laughed, flicking one of Cat's pink curls.

"Red velvet cupcakes!"

"Oh, you like them? I'll pick some up from the store."

"Thanks, Mommy!"

* * *

When she was fifteen, she got into Hollywood Arts, and she was so excited. "We can't pay for that!" Her Dad yelled, eyes bulging, forehead creased.

"Shh, Harry! Our baby deserves the best. Of course you can go, sweetheart."

"Don't encourage her, you silly woman."

"Don't encourage my own daughter? The daughter I carried, nursed? What about our darling son? Do I ignore him, too?"

"Of course not."

"Listen here," Mrs Valentine started, and then she stopped, mid sentence. "Caterina, go to your room, honey."

"Okay, Mama." Caterina said, feeling to blame. "I love you, Mom. I love you, Dad."

"I love you, too."

* * *

When she was seventeen, she got a lead role in Annie. She sang tomorrow, for all she was worth, and then she smiled at the crowds. Her mother cheered the loudest, her brother smiled the widest, but Cat didn't feel happy, still.

Performing on stage, though, gave her something she never had before. A chance to be somebody else for a while. Be it two seconds, or two hours, she _loved _being anyone else but her. So she auditioned for every play, every stage production, every singing part, because being someone else was all she knew how to do.

* * *

"You're never at home anymore, honey," her mother said one day, concern laced in her sugary tone. Cat kissed her mother's cheek, and smiled.

"I like performing." She'd never tell her the real reason. She'd never tell her that she could be _Cat _on stage, not silly old Caterina. She lost herself in the music, in the lines, in the lights! And when she wasn't on stage? Well, that was easy enough to block out.

Real life was simply a complication of Cat's stage life.

* * *

Then Cat blocked out everything in her real life, one by one, happily knocking them out of her life, smiling all the way. Friends, poof! Gone. Hobbies? One swift kick and they're out, too. Family wasn't as easy to shift. Dad was all but forgotten about, but Mama and Jason's images burned into Cat's mind. She took a deep breath and swept them away from her imagination.

Now she had to forget about herself. And then she would be happy again, wouldn't she?

Wouldn't she?

She had to be right.

* * *

She was wrong. Oh, god, was she wrong!

Sitting in her room at the institution, staring at the same four white-gray walls all day, she didn't know how wrong she was.

"Caterina, darling?" Her mother pleads, pulling at her daughter's nightgown, crying with her hand over her mouth.

"Kitty? Kitty, please!" Her older brother cries, squeezing his eyes closed tightly to halt the free flowing tears.

"Caterina, you get up this instant. You're upsetting your mother."

She barely acknowledges any of it. She blinks, she breathes, she eats. Sometimes she talks, even.

She doesn't _smile, _and she isn't _happy._

She no longer _giggles, _andthat joke isn't so_ funny_ now.

She never _asks_ but she still doesn't _care._

She refuses _says hello _but new faces are still just so _uninteresting._

_So who is she now?_

_Is she Cat? Or Caterina? Or maybe, she's just the shadow of a girl she was._

_Maybe, the lights are on, but nobody's home._

_Knock knock...? _

_Maybe you should leave well alone. _


End file.
